Testing reliability and transferability of Population Viability Analysis Models: a crucial step to provide both widely applicable and efficient biodiversity conservation guidelines.

Population Viability Analysis (PVA) models are predictive models used to estimate the future population size of a species in a given landscape and the influence of management scenarios on species persistence. Thus, it is recognised as a central tool for biodiversity conservation planning. Nevertheless, current PVA models are 1) often developed on incomplete set of empirical data, 2) using oversimplification of metapopulation functioning and landscape complexity, 3) rarely validated through the use of independent data sets, and 4) nearly always tailored to a specific situation which hampers their repeatability and generalisation across species. This is why, taking the advantage of available high standard data on butterfly metapopulations of two species (Boloria eunomia et Boloria aquilonaris), I propose to first improve PVA models developed for these two species by integrating habitat quality indexes and estimates of functional connectivity. In a second step, models will be validated using two independent data sets collected within the team in 1996/1997 and during my post doc fellowship in 2009/2010, to ensure the quality of the models and the reliability of their predictions. In a third step, transferability of PVA parameters across species will be tested. All parameter estimated for the species will be compared to each other and I will assess to which extent the transfer of parameters between species models influence PVA predictions compared to the validated models. Finally, viability of the two species will be evaluated and compared under the same set of management scenarios, to provide practical management guidelines taking into account both the needs of the species and the financial limitations.